Monday 23 March 2009

Final Image Finishing Line in Sight


Hi folks

My final image has at last taken shape. At this scale I don't know if you can see the coloured rectangles in the upper 3/4 of the image but what I have to do is replace them with photographs, scans and news cuttings and that's the work finished.

Visually what you are seeing is shape given to a musical composition, the context of which involves the potency of musical memory, and how music can often reawaken personal memories and associations that are otherwise lost. Research for this project led me to work with a group of people who are suffering from dementia, an illness in which memory degeneration is continuous. It has been known for some time that musical memory is more resilient to disintegration and has been called a "relative island of preservation in a sea of impairments,”(Gardner 1985). A piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head, it acts as a catalyst and calls back autobiographical memories. Recent research suggests that the region of the brain where memories of our past are supported and retrieved also serves as a hub that links familiar music, memories and emotion.

DaveR

Gardner H: Frames of Mind; The theory of multiple intelligences. Chapter 6, "Musical Intelligence," 99-127. New York, Basic, 1985

1 comment:

Dave Wood is Scouse-Scot said...

Nice one Dave, how do you want to exhibit it at the final show?